This invention relates to apparatus for analyzing the performance of electrical power supply systems. Examples of prior art analysis devices are disclosed in Talambiras, U.S. Pat. No. 4,414,638 and in McEachern et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,642,563. A typical commercially available device is the Dranetz 8000-2 Energy Analyzer, sold by the assignee of the present application.
The Dranetz 8000-2 and other prior art devices have contained hardware and firmware tailored for specific applications. Thus it has been necessary to purchase one instrument for generation of power quality data and a second instrument for generating power consumption data. Yet a third instrument was required for motor inrush analysis.
Prior art electrical parameter analyzers have used microprocessors for analyzing energy measurement signals provided by suitably configured probes and in some cases have employed memory cards for recording the results in machine readable form. This has enabled them to perform sophisticated power analyses and to store a series of resulting parameters in an efficient and informative manner. However, the single-purpose design of such prior art electrical parameter analyzers has imposed serious economic and operational constraints. Thus there is a need for an improved electrical parameter analyzer which is essentially unlimited in its ability to handle widely divergent energy analysis functions.